NOT SUCH BAD GUYS:

Kerry and the Communists: John Kerry's limousine liberation theology puts him on the totalitarian side in Nicaragua, Vietnam and Iran. (Cliff Kincaid, 4/06/04, Front Page)

Shortly after becoming a Senator, Kerry took off for Nicaragua with Tom Harkin on a free-lancing fact-finding tour, the purpose of which was to stymie congressional support for the Contras by "finding that the Sandinistas weren't such bad guys after all."

Kerry said at the time, "We believe this is a wonderful opening for a peaceful settlement without having to militarize the region. The real issue is: Is this administration going to overthrow the government of the Sandinistas no matter what they do?" Neumayr notes that Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz ìwas so flabbergasted by Kerry's shilling for Ortega that he denounced Kerry publicly for "dealing with the communists" and letting himself be "used."

But thatís not how Glenn Kessler of the Post saw it. "Over the years," he wrote, "Kerry has pushed engagement with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the communists in Vietnam and the mullahs who run Iran." Kessler wrote that, "Early in his Senate career, in 1985, he riled the Reagan administration by traveling to Nicaragua to meet with the Sandinista government, saying that "we've got to create a climate of trust." Kessler said that Kerry had "questioned U.S. support for the contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s."

That's how Kessler sanitized a Kerry policy of appeasing the communists in Nicaragua.

The next totalitarian he fails to play the stooge for will be the first.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 6, 2004 8:00 AM